The Peter Auto organisation ran the Imola Classic race meeting at the Circuit Enzo & Dino Ferrari over the weekend of 26 – 28 October 2018, offering free entry to all. This attracted a good audience to watch a packed weekend of classic racing, despite the weather being a mix of sunshine and showers. At least it didn’t suffer from the torrential rain and storms that some parts of Italy were experiencing that weekend. The event also attracted strong entries in most of the races, with only the Euro F2 Classic races having sparse grids, whereas the Heritage Touring Cup, with its colourful array of well known liveries, attracted a very healthy 48 entries, and the Sixties Endurance Race topped the charts with a massive 54 car entry.

Apart from those already mentioned, there were Classic Endurance Races 1 and 2, the former for cars built between 1966 and 1974, plus sports racing cars built between 1966 and 1971, whereas the Race 2 entries were GT cars built between 1975 and 1981, with sports racing cars built between 1972 and 1981, providing a wide array of makes and models on the grids. There were also two races for Group C cars, those monstrously powerful endurance protagonists that dominated endurance racing between 1982 and 1994, with the likes of the dominant Porsche 956 and 962 models, Jaguar XJR11 and XJR14, plus lesser known examples like Cheetah, Spice and Ecosse. There was a further pair of races, The Greatest’s Trophy races, which were open to pre-1966 sports and GT cars, with the emphasis on gentlemanly driving, in respect of the value of some of the cars taking part. The Heritage Touring Cup was open to saloon cars eligible for the European Touring Car Championship between 1966 and 1984, in a number of classes dependent upon age and engine capacity, whilst the Sixties Endurance race was for pre-1963 sports cars and pre-1966 GT Cars that ran in endurance races in period. From this it can be seen that there was scope for many varied trips down memory lane.

Apart from some superb machinery taking part, there were also a number of familiar names in the driving seats, notably five times Le Mans 24 Hour Race winner Emanuele Pirro. He shared a beautiful Alfa Romeo T33/3 with Gianluca Rattazzi in the Classic Endurance Racing 1 race, with the same duo competing in a Lola T290 BDG in the Classic Endurance Racing 2 race, whilst his son, Goffredo, shared a Porsche 911 ST with “Blumax” in the former race. Other well know names taking part included Jurgen Barth, Ralf Kelleners, Soheil Ayari and Raymond Narac.

The vagaries of the weather through the course of the weekend caused a few off course excursions under the changing conditions, and with them a number of full course yellows and safety car periods. However, it also made for some exciting racing and mixed up the race finishing orders, notably where there were two races for a category, one on the Saturday, which was predominantly dry, and one on the Sunday, where showers were for the most part the order of the day. None of these races featured the same winner on both days.